Question

How should I adjust my baby's sleep schedule?

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My family and I moved from Arizona to Alaska a few months ago and my 11 month old son's sleep schedule is completely off! I would like him to wake up earlier and go to sleep earlier. How should I do this? Should I drag him out of bed earlier or not let him take a nap (for a few days) so that he goes to bed earlier? When I do wake him up earlier he is really grumpy and usually takes a long nap and then byt he next day - like clockwork- he is back to his normal sleep schedule. I would really like him to get up 3 hours earlier. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Mom Answers

When I want my son to go to bed earlier...I wake him up from his afternoon nap early. My son has to be awake for at least 3 hours to sleep again. So if I want him to go to bed at 7 pm I would wake him no later than 4 pm from his nap. Sometimes he will get up insanley early in the morning, which makes his last nap of the day end at like 1 to 1:30 in the afternoon. If I would let him nap again around 4 it would be really late when he goes down for the night so I make him push through by distracting him and playing with him alot. Then he goes to bed really early. Hope this makes sense. We just moved too (only about a mile though hahah) but being in a new house gave him seperation anxiety pretty bad. For a week or so life was tough and our little routine got blown out of the water. I thought things would never get back to normal and was regretting the move. Things went back to normal and all is well. Hang in there.....Stacey

Adjust away! Do it slowly, wake him up an hour earlier for a few days, and adjust his naps to be a bit shorter too. Then see how he does and slowly get him to the wake up time you want. It will be a rough time while he adjusts, but he'll come around. Don't let him make up the sleep in his naps, slowly he should sleep longer at night. My son is 16 mo and was waking up at 5:30 am (rather than 6:30). So I cut 30 min from both of his naps and he's slowly getting back to waking up at 6:30. If you need to use a paci more or other things to get him (and yourself) through the grumpiness, go for it. That's ok. :) Good luck!!

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